Akiko and the Great Wall of Trudd Read Online Free PDF

The more I talked, the more confident I felt. It’s not as if I weren’t scared anymore. I was. But somehow I felt as if I could
deal
with being scared, at least for the time being.
    “But, Akiko—” Mr. Beeba began.
    “But nothing,” I said, turning my attention to the ropes around my waist. “Let’s hurry up and get ourselves untied.”

Spuckler grinned and busily set to work undoing all the knots. Mr. Beeba muttered a bit with a look of confusion on his face but then silently joined us in freeing up the rope. Before long I was able to climb onto Gax, balancing myself on top of his body. His legs creaked a little under my weight, and I instinctively held on with all my might. Soon, though, I felt confident that Gax would have no trouble carrying me all the way up the wall.
    “Now, don’t rush yourself, Gax,” Spuckler said cheerfully. “Beebs and I can sit here on this ledge all day if we have to.”
    “A-and, er, Akiko,” Mr. Beeba stammered, sounding like a worried grandmother, “try not to, er . . . that is to say, I do hope you’ll refrain from, eh . . .”
    “Don’t worry, Mr. Beeba,” I replied. “I’ve learned my lesson about looking down.”
    Mr. Beeba smiled apologetically.
    With a rhythmic popping sound, Gax’s suction-cupped legs slowly but surely carried both of us up the wall. I kept my face turned up at all times, not allowing myself to look down even once. I didn’t even want to risk looking
sideways
. I glanced to my left once, though, and was pleasantly surprised to find Poog there. I guess he’d decided to float up along with us, hovering just a few inches away from me. It was very comforting just knowing he was there.

    Before long the top of the wall was only about forty feet away.
    “All right, Gax,” I said. “We’re almost there.”
    “ I’M GOING TO HAVE TO TAKE A BIT OF A DETOUR, MA’AM, ” Gax said with a loud squeak. “ I DON’T WANT TO RISK WALKING ACROSS ANOTHER UNSTABLE SECTION OF THE WALL. ”
    “Sounds like a good idea, Gax,” I said, nodding in agreement. I had a momentary vision of the wall crumbling away beneath us and did my best to put it out of my mind.
    Gax zigzagged this way and that as he tried to find the safest route, and Poog followed along at every turn. The sound of flags flapping in the wind became louder. The top of the wall was only twenty feet away. Then ten, then . . .
    I threw my hands onto a large, sturdy-looking stone above my head and hoisted myself off Gax as soon as I had the chance. A warm wind blew into my face as I scampered over the edge and onto the great wide surface covering the top of the wall. I could hear a distant chirping sound like seagulls coming from the other side of the wall, and part of me wanted to crawl across and see what was over there. But I stopped myself.
    That’s something we should all do together, I thought.

I took the rope and began looking for something I could tie it to. A pretty big stone jutted out from the top of the wall that I figured would do the trick. Taking hold of one end of the rope, I wrapped it around the stone several times and made a knot. I remembered my dad teaching me how to tie a square knot once when we were tying up Christmas packages to mail to our relatives in Japan. He told me I’d be surprised how important it could be to know how to tie at least one good knot. Boy, was he ever right about
that
!
    “Let’s see, now,” I said to myself while Gax looked on in fascination, “was it right over left first . . . or left over right first?” I finally decided it was left over right. In the end, though, I think I kind of invented my own knot, because I kept looping the rope around and tying it over and over.
    “Well, Gax, it’s not very pretty,” I said, yanking on the rope as hard as I could, “but I think it’ll hold.”
    Crawling back to the edge of the wall but not daring to look over it, I tossed the remainder of the rope into the air and let it drop to